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its steaming path in broad, sweeping strokes, just so many strokes
and no more, just so far with each stroke and not a fraction of an
inch farther, rushing along interminable sleeves, sides, backs, and
tails, and tossing the finished shirts, without rumpling, upon the
receiving frame. And even as his hurrying soul tossed, it was
reaching for another shirt. This went on, hour after hour, while
outside all the world swooned under the overhead California sun.
But there was no swooning in that superheated room. The cool
guests on the verandas needed clean linen.
The sweat poured from Martin. He drank enormous quantities of
water, but so great was the heat of the day and of his exertions,
that the water sluiced through the interstices of his flesh and out
at all his pores. Always, at sea, except at rare intervals, the
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work he performed had given him ample opportunity to commune with
himself. The master of the ship had been lord of Martin's time;
but here the manager of the hotel was lord of Martin's thoughts as
well. He had no thoughts save for the nerve-racking, body-
destroying toil. Outside of that it was impossible to think. He
did not know that he loved Ruth. She did not even exist, for his
driven soul had no time to remember her. It was only when he
Martin Eden
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crawled to bed at night, or to breakfast in the morning, that she
asserted herself to him in fleeting memories.
"This is hell, ain't it?" Joe remarked once.
Martin nodded, but felt a rasp of irritation. The statement had
been obvious and unnecessary. They did not talk while they worked.
Conversation threw them out of their stride, as it did this time,
compelling Martin to miss a stroke of his iron and to make two
extra motions before he caught his stride again.
On Friday morning the washer ran. Twice a week they had to put
through hotel linen, - the sheets, pillow-slips, spreads, table-
cloths, and napkins. This finished, they buckled down to "fancy
starch." It was slow work, fastidious and delicate, and Martin did
not learn it so readily. Besides, he could not take chances.
Mistakes were disastrous.
"See that," Joe said, holding up a filmy corset-cover that he could
have crumpled from view in one hand. "Scorch that an' it's twenty
dollars out of your wages."
So Martin did not scorch that, and eased down on his muscular
tension, though nervous tension rose higher than ever, and he
listened sympathetically to the other's blasphemies as he toiled
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and suffered over the beautiful things that women wear when they do
not have to do their own laundrying. "Fancy starch" was Martin's
nightmare, and it was Joe's, too. It was "fancy starch" that
robbed them of their hard-won minutes. They toiled at it all day.
At seven in the evening they broke off to run the hotel linen
through the mangle. At ten o'clock, while the hotel guests slept,
the two laundrymen sweated on at "fancy starch" till midnight, till
one, till two. At half-past two they knocked off.
Saturday morning it was "fancy starch," and odds and ends, and at
three in the afternoon the week's work was done.
"You ain't a-goin' to ride them seventy miles into Oakland on top
of this?" Joe demanded, as they sat on the stairs and took a
triumphant smoke.
"Got to," was the answer.
"What are you goin' for? - a girl?"
"No; to save two and a half on the railroad ticket. I want to
renew some books at the library."
"Why don't you send 'em down an' up by express? That'll cost only
a quarter each way."
Martin considered it.
"An' take a rest to-morrow," the other urged. "You need it. I
know I do. I'm plumb tuckered out."
He looked it. Indomitable, never resting, fighting for seconds and
Martin Eden
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100
minutes all week, circumventing delays and crushing down obstacles,
a fount of resistless energy, a high-driven human motor, a demon
for work, now that he had accomplished the week's task he was in a
state of collapse. He was worn and haggard, and his handsome face
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drooped in lean exhaustion. He pulled his cigarette spiritlessly,
and his voice was peculiarly dead and monotonous. All the snap and
fire had gone out of him. His triumph seemed a sorry one.
"An' next week we got to do it all over again," he said sadly.
"An' what's the good of it all, hey? Sometimes I wish I was a
hobo. They don't work, an' they get their livin'. Gee! I wish I
had a glass of beer; but I can't get up the gumption to go down to
the village an' get it. You'll stay over, an' send your books dawn
by express, or else you're a damn fool."
"But what can I do here all day Sunday?" Martin asked.
"Rest. You don't know how tired you are. Why, I'm that tired
Sunday I can't even read the papers. I was sick once - typhoid.
In the hospital two months an' a half. Didn't do a tap of work all
that time. It was beautiful."
"It was beautiful," he repeated dreamily, a minute later.
Martin took a bath, after which he found that the head laundryman
had disappeared. Most likely he had gone for a glass of beer
Martin decided, but the half-mile walk down to the village to find
out seemed a long journey to him. He lay on his bed with his shoes
off, trying to make up his mind. He did not reach out for a book.
He was too tired to feel sleepy, and he lay, scarcely thinking, in
a semi-stupor of weariness, until it was time for supper. Joe did
not appear for that function, and when Martin heard the gardener
remark that most likely he was ripping the slats off the bar,
Martin understood. He went to bed immediately afterward, and in
the morning decided that he was greatly rested. Joe being still
absent, Martin procured a Sunday paper and lay down in a shady nook
under the trees. The morning passed, he knew not how. He did not
sleep, nobody disturbed him, and he did not finish the paper. He
came back to it in the afternoon, after dinner, and fell asleep
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over it.
So passed Sunday, and Monday morning he was hard at work, sorting
clothes, while Joe, a towel bound tightly around his head, with
groans and blasphemies, was running the washer and mixing soft-
soap.
"I simply can't help it," he explained. "I got to drink when
Saturday night comes around."
Another week passed, a great battle that continued under the
electric lights each night and that culminated on Saturday
afternoon at three o'clock, when Joe tasted his moment of wilted
triumph and then drifted down to the village to forget. Martin's
Sunday was the same as before. He slept in the shade of the trees,
toiled aimlessly through the newspaper, and spent long hours lying
on his back, doing nothing, thinking nothing. He was too dazed to
think, though he was aware that he did not like himself. He was
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self-repelled, as though he had undergone some degradation or was
intrinsically foul. All that was god-like in him was blotted out.
The spur of ambition was blunted; he had no vitality with which to
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